


Evergreen

by moonlight69



Category: Cal Leandros - Rob Thurman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:11:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight69/pseuds/moonlight69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hunting monsters is their job, but hazard pay doesn't always cover the price of such a career. One day their luck may run out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evergreen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hollow_echos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollow_echos/gifts).



It was two days before Christmas, and instead of being curled up by a warm fire with some hot chocolate, I was chasing down the latest monster of the week. Good old New York. You could always count on this city to not give a shit.

“If this is the Grinch, he can go right ahead and steal Christmas,” I grumbled, accepting Niko’s hand to help me to my feet, out of the frozen puddle of slush and grime I’d landed in ass-first as our new friend had dodged past me in the alleyway with a hard shove.

Niko sighed with infinite patience, his hand moving from gripping mine to smacking the back of my head with near-inhuman speed. And I would know. We both had plenty of experience with all things not human. I wasn’t sure if the smack was for my lack of education or for allowing myself to be knocked over in the first place. Both types were common as hell in my life. Brotherly love, Niko showed it in unusual ways.

“The Grinch is a fictional character, Cal,” he chided, shaking his head as narrowed his eyes, tracking the furry green creature as it leapt onto the side of a building and started climbing with ease. Great. Spider-Grinch.

“Hey, you never know. Maybe Seuss had insight into the supernatural. Have you _seen_ some of the things he puts in his books?” I explained, shaking my head as I came up next to him, staring up as the creature scaled the building and made it to the roof.

Niko gave me a look of of exaggerated shock. “What I find hard to believe is that you’ve actually _opened_ a book,” he commented, heading for the apartment building’s front entrance. Six floors. It could be worse, especially since my brother eschewed elevators. Nothing like death coming for you while you’re trapped in a box. Hell, at this time of year, you could slap a bow on it, make it festive. 

I wasn’t about to become some monster’s Christmas present. We would take the stairs. “Lots of colorful pictures,” I pointed out, groaning quietly as I followed him. This was _not_ how I had wanted to spend my evening, but apparently the boogeymen had no respect for others’ plans. Besides, it was a paying job, and those were always welcome.

“Of course,” Niko murmured dryly, shaking his head as he hit the door to the stairwell and started climbing almost as quickly as the thing had climbed the wall. For that matter, I was kind of surprised Nik hadn’t just started right up after him. My brother the superninja could probably leap tall buildings in a single bound if he wanted to. Or at least scale them without using a grappling hook. Me? Despite my half-monster heritage, I was pretty sure that was one trick that was beyond me. Of course, I was lazy enough that we’d probably never know.

I started up after Nik, displaying none of the agile grace that came naturally to him, but managing to keep up all the same. We burst onto the roof, my Glock and his katana ready to kick some Seussian ass. The monster was ready for us, though, and with an inhuman screech and a slash of some wickedly sharp claws in our general direction, it…disappeared. Right before my fucking eyes.

I frowned, keeping my gun ready. I couldn’t see it but I could still _smell_ it. It hadn’t teleported then, it had just gone…”Invisible? _Really_?” I groaned. “I don’t remember him pulling _that_ trick in Whoville.”

“It’s an Oni,” Niko corrected patiently. “Japanese in origin. They are often called demons, ogres, or trolls.”

I snorted. “Definitely not a troll. He doesn’t smell bad enough.” And I had intimate knowledge of what trolls smelled like, thanks to Abbagor, the troll that had lived beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Past tense. Niko and I had killed him, and we would kill this thing, too. If we could find it.

“They were originally thought of as ghosts,” Niko continued as if he hadn’t heard my comment. “Perhaps because of this particular trick of theirs.” He moved suddenly, attacking an unseen foe and causing it to flicker into visibility for a moment as it let out a screech of pain, Nik’s sword leaving a slash across its side that had to hurt. It disappeared again and we heard it move away, probably to reconsider its life choices. My brother had that effect on you.

We followed, tracking it by sound and (in my case) scent. Fighting an opponent you couldn’t see was difficult, but nothing the two of us couldn’t handle. “Save the mythology lesson for later, Cyrano,” I suggested, holstering the Glock and pulling out my knife. Guns were my weapon of choice, but you couldn’t aim a gun at what you couldn’t see—at least not well. We were in for a close-range fight, so the knife was a better bet. Niko indicated his approval with a nod that was so miniscule I probably wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t already known it was coming.

We had it cornered now, and I smiled. “We should grab some Chinese food once we get paid,” I suggested, Niko and I moving apart to box the Grinch in on its two remaining sides. At least that was the plan. There was a whoosh of displaced air just before we got into fighting range, and the creature’s smell faded. “Damn it!” I cursed, whirling as I tried to figure out where it went. “I swear to god, if this thing starts rooftop hopping I’m out.”

“No, you’re not,” Niko said firmly. He was right. I would grumble, the volume and duration of which would grow in direct proportion to the number of stairs I had to climb, but I would keep going until this thing was dead. Why? I’d like to say it was because of the money. Mercenary soul, and all that. But really it was because this thing ate kids. Had already eaten one, and would probably go after more if given the chance. It wouldn’t be given that chance.

It hadn’t hopped rooftops, though. I found that out when I heard it behind me. I turned, knife at the ready, and it saved my life. Instead of piercing my heart, the wickedly sharp six-inch black claws this guy was wielding punched through my right shoulder instead. The pain was bright and hot, worse than it should have been, and my knife clattered from my hand as my arm went numb. At least the thing was visible again, I thought to myself as I folded to the rooftop, my legs suddenly no longer supporting me. The numbness was spreading and I fought against it, struggling to move my hand, to grab my knife even as unconsciousness dragged at me.

“Cal!” Niko’s voice sounded like it was coming from a long way away, echoey and strange. I had just enough time to see the Grinch’s head part ways with its body at the hands of my brother before my eyelids became too heavy to stay open. “Cal! _Cal!_ ” I tried to make my mouth move, to make a smartass remark and let him know I was okay, but the blackness was rolling through my mind in waves.

I went under.

* * *

When I dragged my eyes open, the face that hovered over mine was _not_ the one I expected to see. “Nik!” I said—tried to say, but my tongue felt thick, the word coming out a groggy mumble rather than the panicked exclamation it tried to be. Before I could even try to sit up, Goodfellow’s hand was on my chest, keeping me down.

“Hold still. If you rip your stitches on my watch, your brother will try to take my magnificent hide as a rug,” Robin commented with an eyeroll that indicated his doubt that Niko could actually carry through on the threat. I wasn’t so sure. “Niko is fine. He’s just in the other room.” Of course, the moment he heard my voice, muted and slurred though it was, my brother appeared in the doorway. Goodfellow melted away as they reversed positions, Nik taking the chair by the side of my bed as the Puck hovered in the doorway, joined by my brother’s vampire girlfriend, Promise. Great, the gang was all here. That couldn’t bode well.

“Cal,” Niko said gently. I felt him take my hand, but in a detached kind of way, like it was disconnected from me, happening to someone else. Also not a good sign. “How are you feeling?”

“Uhhh.” I frowned, taking stock. I was actually feeling…strange. There was no pain, and there should have been. I remembered the hot sensation of those claws turning me into a Cal-kebob, but it didn’t hurt now. “Damn, Cyrano. Where’d you get the morphine?” I slurred.

Niko exchanged a quick glance with the other two, which didn’t help the slowly growing suspicion that something was going on. “I didn’t,” he said curtly, his gentle manner fading some, becoming businesslike. “Can you move?”

I sat up carefully to show him I could—at least, that’s how it went in my head. In reality I shifted my head against the sheet a little, feeling a faint bloom of warmth from my shoulder, but that was the best I managed. “What the hell is going on?”

“You don’t want to be an Oni’s manicurist, though Zeus knows they could use one,” Robin answered from the door, doing his best to hide his worry. I knew him well enough by now that I could see it—and it was echoed in Promise and Niko’s expressions.

“Their claws produce a paralytic,” Niko explained. “Usually it wears off in a few hours.”

There was something they weren’t telling me, and for once I wished I hit the books a little harder. They all knew something I didn’t. “Usually?” I repeated, trying to arch an eyebrow. Maybe I even succeeded, it was hard to tell. My face felt numb and rubbery.

Goodfellow and Promise disappeared from the door, leaving Niko alone with me. My brother shook his head a little. “You’ll be fine,” he assured me, as if by speaking the words he could make them come true. The power of positive thinking. Yeah, right. Like that had ever worked for us.

“Nik, come on. What are you not telling me?” I demanded in garbled, half-formed words, frustrated by my own inability to even put together a sentence without sounding like I was fall-down drunk.

Niko glanced down at our clasped hands, then back to my face. He was never one for cowardice, and I braced myself for the worst. “In high enough doses, the paralysis…can be permanent,” he told me, then leaned closer. “But it’s not. You’ll be fine,” he repeated, his iron will and the wild fear it held locked behind it suffusing the words with command.

I swallowed, closing my eyes. Permanent? Like I wasn’t a burden enough on my brother, there was a possibility that I’d just become a living meatsack. Unable to do the simplest things for myself. “Sure,” I murmured, trying to keep the despair from my voice. “Fine.”

“Get some rest,” Niko suggested. “One of us will be here all the time.”

“So will I,” I muttered. Permanent. The word kept dancing through my head, conjuring up hellish, monotonous futures in which Niko was forced to play nursemaid to his paralyzed little brother. I knew he’d do it without complaining, but I couldn’t ruin his life like that, not now that he’d finally started to have one. I’d figure out something, somehow.

The next twenty-four hours passed in a gray blur. The Oni poison was still in full swing, and my brother was in full ‘take care of Cal’ mode. You’d think he’d been a hospital orderly in a past life, from the efficient way he took care of me, propping me up to feed me, changing my sheets with his usual dry comment about how it was far from the first time he’d wiped my ass. Bet he never thought he might have to go back to changing my diapers one day—or at least not this soon.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” I pointed out as he carefully eased me back down after my baby food dinner. I wondered if you could get pureed pizza. If not, life really _wouldn’t_ be worth living. “You should go do something. Unwrap Promise under the tree, or whatever.” 

Niko snorted quietly, but didn’t bother to smack me. I would have barely felt it anyway, and couldn’t deflect the blow, so it would serve no training purpose. “Christmas is a time for family,” he replied, setting the dinner tray on the nightstand.

“And she’s a part of it. Come on, Cyrano. If I’m gonna be like this forever, you can’t live your life at my bedside,” I pointed out reasonably.

“You will _not_ ,” he insisted, despite all evidence to the contrary. I had always been his biggest blind spot. His _only_ blind spot, if we were being honest. Just because there were no records of the effects lasting this long before wearing off didn’t mean I wouldn’t be the exception. Yeah, he was good at denial when it came to me.

I was better at facing the truth. Especially when the truth equaled ‘life sucks, Caliban’. It was my life story, told through blood and adrenaline, running for our lives and hiding from my ‘family’ of murderous, red-eyed killing machines. Why would it change now?

“Okay, fine,” I said, letting him keep his delusion for a little while longer. It was Christmas, after all. “That still doesn’t mean you need to hang around here on Christmas Eve when you could be doing something more enjoyable.”

Niko’s delusion apparently included selective deafness. He ignored my comment as he rose, picking up the tray. “Would you like me to read to you? I’ll select something with small words,” he offered with a wry smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“If I could throw something at you, I would,” I told him, glaring. Trying to be normal for him. Same old Cal, with 100% less action. “Guess all my years of laziness were really just training for the big event.” _That_ comment earned me a warning look. “I’ll be right back,” he promised as he headed for the door.

“I’ll try not to go anywhere.” I sighed and closed my eyes, listening to him in the kitchen, cleaning dishes and putting them away. Even catastrophic paralysis of his only brother couldn’t shake the neat freak out of Niko. It was comforting, though. A little taste of normalcy in what was starting to look like a very bleak life, for both of us. Nik had a hard time letting me out of his sight when I was fully able to protect myself, despite his opinion on the subject. How could I fight off a monster if I couldn’t even hold a knife, couldn’t pull a trigger? And how could he lead a normal life if he was always by my side?

He returned a minute later, the book in his hand too thick and dusty to be meant for my ears. With a brief smile for me, he settled into his chair and started reading, dark blond hair falling to half hide his face. I watched him in silence for a few minutes. “Something on your mind?” he murmured when I didn’t say anything.

“Nik—if this is really permanent, I want you to-“ as if he could read my mind (and hell, let’s be honest, he probably could. Niko knew me better than anyone, better than I knew myself sometimes) his head snapped up, gray eyes cold and unforgiving as a long, graceful finger pressed to my lips.

“It’s not, and even if it was, I would simply go on taking care of you,” he asserted sternly. “It’s not as if _my_ life would change much. I’ve been cleaning up your literal and figurative messes for years.” Yeah, I’d figured a suggestion of a mercy killing wouldn’t go over well, but Jesus. He hadn’t even let me get the words out. Maybe Goodfellow, then. He was more pragmatic. He’d see that it was the best thing for Niko, in the end, even if my brother didn’t think so.

As if he could tell my mind was still considering options in that direction, he leaned over, forcing me to meet his gaze. “You are not going to leave me, little brother,” he said quietly, implacably. “I haven’t kept you safe this long to let you do something stupid. And I’ll make sure Goodfellow and Promise know what you’re thinking, so _stop_. Just stop.”

“Nik, I don’t wanna be a burden-“ I started to protest.

“You’ve never minded before,” he said dryly, and I glared.

“Before, I could wipe my own ass.”

“That’s the least of my concerns,” my brother replied tightly, and I realized he was scared. Not scared that he would have an invalid brother to care for for the rest of his life, but scared that if he left my side, if he left me defenseless, even if Robin or Promise were there, that something would get to me. Overly responsible, that was Nik all over.

“I know,” I told him quietly. “I know, Nik.”

He sighed, his muscles relaxing almost imperceptibly, but I could see it. We were both tense, I knew. If only there were some way to see the future, but even if our own personal psychic were still a part of our lives (and she wasn’t, I’d seen to that for her own good, despite how it had hurt) it wasn’t as if she would have looked. What would be would be, that was George’s motto, and the big things couldn’t be changed, so why torture yourself with the knowledge?

I watched him for a minute, then closed my eyes. There was nothing more either of us could say, nothing that would change this situation and how much it blew. I heard him return to his reading, the soft rustle of paper pages turning becoming a quiet comfort. I could feel myself getting drowsy and wondered if maybe Nik had put something in my food. Or maybe it was just depression making me tired. What did I have to do other than sleep, anyway?

“Hey, maybe Santa will come and bring me an antidote,” I murmured half-asleep already. I knew it wasn’t visions of sugarplums that would be dancing in my head, though. More like visions of monsters of all variety coming to pay me a Christmas visit. You know those dreams where something is coming for you and you can’t move? Yeah, they suck even more when that’s actually _true_.

“He’s more likely to bring you coal,” Niko murmured, resting his hand on my forehead.

“Yeah, and to have a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth and a machete,” I answered. Hey, if the Grinch turned out to be a vicious, child-eating demon with poisoned claws, all bets were off on the fat guy. The fairy tales and stories always got it wrong, and sometimes in horrible, psyche-damaging ways. Just look at my relatives.

“If he does, I’ll protect you,” Niko promised in a whisper that barely penetrated my mind as I fell asleep. He didn’t have to say it, though. I knew it was true, had been true every day of my life. My brother would always protect me, even from myself.

* * *

I woke up the next morning to a room that was just barely starting to show the rosy glow of sunrise. It was far too early for me, and I wasn’t sure what had woke me up. I stretched and turned my head to see Niko asleep in his chair. My hand moved toward his arm to gently wake him before the realization hit me. It wasn’t until I felt the twinge of my shoulder, sharp and bright and _present_ , that I realized the numb lethargy of the last thirty-six hours was gone. I could feel, could move.

Before I got the chance to prove this by waking Niko, familiar gray eyes opened and fixed on me. “Cal?” Niko shifted, showing no sign of the stiffness he must have been feeling after sleeping in that damn chair all night. “Your shoulder is still injured, stop squirming,” he ordered, but his eyes were alight with relief and happiness despite the words.

“Screw that, I haven’t moved in over a day.” I carefully sat up, ignoring his hand as he reached out—to help, to restrain, I wasn’t sure which, but whatever he planned he didn’t actually do it. “Well, what do you know? It’s a goddamn Christmas miracle.”

“No, it’s your brother being proven right, once again,” Niko reminded me with a ghost of a smile. He didn’t smile much, my brother, but I knew how to spot them when they came. He was as happy as I was that I was moving around again. “And now that you’re capable, if you tear your stitches I’ll let you sew them again yourself.” He would, too. Nik was firmly in the ‘tough love’ camp.

“Yeah, yeah.” I grinned and stretched my good arm over my head, relishing the feel of muscles that had gone unused for hours losing their stiffness and warming up. God, it felt good to move again. I didn’t know what was responsible for it; whether Nik had been right all along, as he would assert to the end of my days, or if maybe my half-Auphe constitution had decided to say a good ‘fuck you’ to whatever had been in that Oni’s poison. The why didn’t really matter, though. If it _was_ my Auphe half, it was one of the few good things it had ever done for me, and I’d take it. Without question.

Niko rose to hover like a worried nursemaid as I swung my legs over the side of the bed and got to my feet. I felt a little weak, and the pain in my shoulder was really starting to sing, but even that felt good in a way. At least I could _feel_ it. I’d probably change my tune in a half hour, but we had the good painkillers in stock if I needed them. For now I was relishing every sensation, every movement. And I was going to do something else I thought I might never do now: I was going to take a piss unassisted. “I’m fine, Cyrano. If you want to do something to help, why don’t you go make some pancakes? I’m starving.”

Now that he’d observed for himself that I was truly none the worse for wear, my uninjured shoulder got a solid whap for that comment. “Oh, I think you’re recovered enough to poison your body without my help,” he observed, following me to the door and letting me head to the bathroom alone. He turned toward the kitchen as I closed the door, and while I might be on my own on the pancakes front, I could hear him making me coffee while he got his own morning tea and whatever nasty seaweed and Echinacea crap he decided passed for breakfast started.

I joined him in the kitchen when I was finished, and for a minute we just moved around each other in content silence. I opted for cereal over pancakes, because a day of being paralyzed wasn’t about to cure my laziness. We sat down to eat across from each other.

“I suppose I should call Goodfellow and Promise after breakfast,” Niko mused. “They’ll both be delighted to hear you’ve recovered.” I grinned. It was still weird to have people besides Niko care whether I lived or died, but I was starting to like it.

“Yeah, tell them they can come over and see for themselves, but my Christmas shopping was sort of aborted due to paralysis, so don’t expect presents.” I hadn’t even gotten Niko anything, which was what I got for procrastinating, I suppose.

“As Robin has been around far longer than the very concept of Christmas, and Promise really has no need for material gifts, I somehow don’t think they’ll mind.” Oh, Goodfellow would probably make a show of complaining, going on about how a Puck of his stature should be showered with gifts _every_ day, not just one day a year, but I knew Nik was right. That didn’t really assuage the guilt, but hey, what could I do? I’d been paralyzed on the last shopping day before Christmas.

“I’ll get them something later. And you, too,” I promised.

Niko shook his head and gave me an exasperated but fond look. He didn’t have to say it. I knew me being back to normal was the best gift I could have given him. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t get him something else. Something sharp. He always appreciated gifts that could slice a revenant into lunchmeat.

“I know,” I said quietly, getting up to put my bowl in the sink. I came over and cleared his dishes as well, earning a look of genuine surprise. “Merry Christmas, Cyrano,” I drawled. “Don’t get used to it.”

“Perish the thought,” he said dryly, rising. But the gentle squeeze of my arm spoke volumes. “Merry Christmas, Cal.” He pulled out his phone and started making calls.

I sat back down with my coffee and listened to his end of the conversations, smiling. I didn’t believe in much, certainly not a benevolent god who sacrificed his only son for the sins of the world…but this was one Christmas miracle I would accept with nothing but gratitude; the ability to keep going by my brother’s side, to keep fighting the darkness without and within, to keep taking care of him as he took care of me.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope my yuletide recipient has as much fun reading this as I did writing it! Special thanks to my betas who were on-call and waiting to read so I could get it posted by the deadline: you know who you are. :)


End file.
